On Scanlations
Recently, my scanlation group agreed to do an interview in which we as a group may be questioned about the legality of scanlations. Now, it was the group's decision that our official stance would simply be, "No comment." Or, as I put it, we've decided to say "We're Switzerland! We're neutral! We have no opinion!" (This is not meant to offend anyone from Switzerland, btw.) And really, there is nothing wrong with this. It is in the group's best interests to keep itself and its individual members from litigious motherfuckers, as Penn Jillette so adequately calls them. But for me, this is a problem. I cannot remain neutral on an issue that bothers me so much. First, however, before I go shooting my mouth off, I would like to point out that the opinion expressed below is MY OWN and does not in any way shape or form reflect the opinions of my scanlation group as a whole. I don't want the group getting in any kind of trouble for this.
Scanlation is illegal, that much is true. But you know what? Just because it's the law doesn't mean that it's right and that I have to agree with it. For instance, it was only in 2003 that the Supreme Court reversed the Texas sodomy law that made it illegal for homosexuals to engage in "deviant sex." I'm using this example to show that there are stupid laws, and that one should think critically about such laws, why they're in place, and whether or not one chooses to follow them. I am not saying that you should go out and steal and kill people, I am only saying that blindly following your government without stopping to think about the laws you observe every day is foolish.
I believe that I provide a service to people: I do not do scanlations for money, I do them because of the eager fans who want to read Japanese manga that is not available in the states. (Not to mention that some scanlations are actually superior to their liscensed English equivalents, and that companies such as Viz often censor nudity.) Personally, I have never worked on anything that's been liscensed, and to the best of my knowledge, scanlation groups usually don't offer manga titles that have been picked up by American companies. To put it bluntly, I do not care about copyright laws; I do not think what I'm doing is wrong.
Furthermore, Japanese publishing companies do not seem to be too concerned with scanlation groups, probably because 1)scanlation groups are small and suing them would be a waste of money, and 2)scanlation groups help create international fans. Two things are completely clear to me: I love translating and I feel that I must do what I can to help manga fans who cannot read Japanese or get ahold of many of the wonderful titles that fail to grace American shores in edited form, and what's more, I refuse to stay silent on this issue.
Scanlation is illegal, that much is true. But you know what? Just because it's the law doesn't mean that it's right and that I have to agree with it. For instance, it was only in 2003 that the Supreme Court reversed the Texas sodomy law that made it illegal for homosexuals to engage in "deviant sex." I'm using this example to show that there are stupid laws, and that one should think critically about such laws, why they're in place, and whether or not one chooses to follow them. I am not saying that you should go out and steal and kill people, I am only saying that blindly following your government without stopping to think about the laws you observe every day is foolish.
I believe that I provide a service to people: I do not do scanlations for money, I do them because of the eager fans who want to read Japanese manga that is not available in the states. (Not to mention that some scanlations are actually superior to their liscensed English equivalents, and that companies such as Viz often censor nudity.) Personally, I have never worked on anything that's been liscensed, and to the best of my knowledge, scanlation groups usually don't offer manga titles that have been picked up by American companies. To put it bluntly, I do not care about copyright laws; I do not think what I'm doing is wrong.
Furthermore, Japanese publishing companies do not seem to be too concerned with scanlation groups, probably because 1)scanlation groups are small and suing them would be a waste of money, and 2)scanlation groups help create international fans. Two things are completely clear to me: I love translating and I feel that I must do what I can to help manga fans who cannot read Japanese or get ahold of many of the wonderful titles that fail to grace American shores in edited form, and what's more, I refuse to stay silent on this issue.